On bike racks and backup plans

A useful piece of equipment for bike commuting is a good bike rack for the car. It's essential for getting bikes around town as a back up in case of emergency (bad weather, flat tire, mechanical problems). A bike rack is also useful as part of a usual day's commute. To illustrate, on Thursday I biked to Pullman. I had an evening with friends planned that involved a trip to Steptoe Butte. I hitched a ride with a friend to the Butte, and then rather than go back to Pullman afterwards (it was quite late by then), I got a ride home to Moscow, leaving my bike in the office. The next day, I drove to Pullman with the bike rack, stopping off on the way to pick up Luke's bike, which he had left at the building in town (the 1912 Center) where he does Karate. When I was done in the office, I walked my bike to the car, hoisted it onto the rack with Luke's bike, and drove home to Moscow.

Our bike rack fits four bikes. This past summer, we took a road trip out to Wisconsin to visit family. We hauled all four bikes on the rack and camping gear in the overhead carrier. I've included a picture of the car after it was all loaded up. I had to remove the seats and pedals, and I also loosened the handle-bar stems on the mountain bikes and rotated the handle bars 90^o. In this way, the handle bars lined up with the bike frames so that they fit firmly on the rack. I then stashed the pedals and seats with the camping gear in the overhead. We travelled over 4,000 miles round trip without any problem.